More than three hundred years ago, Poland was a vast power stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. This area included the Ukraine, home of the fierce, daring cavalry - the Cossacks.
The year 1647 in Poland was a year in which there were strange signs in the heavens and on the earth. First there was a great eclipse of the sun, and soon after a comet appeared in the sky. In Warsaw, a tomb was seen over the city and a fiery cross in the clouds. Wolves and vampires howled in the night and whole legions of ghosts marched. These were believed to be signs a great war was coming.
Wyoming in the 1870's was a vast territory of men, guns and cattle. With cattel came rustling and with rustling came the need for law and justice. For some, law came out of a blazing gun and justice meant swinging at the end of a rope in the cold dawn. For the Virginian, justice came in a duel at sunset.
When Louis XiV died in 1715, his great grandson came to the throne at the age of five. A battle over who should be regent and rule the country until the king was old enough developed between two parties, one led by Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, and the other by Duc de Maine. Although Philippe became regent, the followers of his rival did not remain idle. A young man, Raoul d'Harmental, was committed to kidnap the regent until, by the strange action of fate, Raoul's very life depended upon the man he was to have kidnapped.
These stories are about real animals, almost all meet a tragic end, for this is nature's law concerning wild things. But in each is the stamp of greatness.
